5 things meme (twice) [damerell]

Many of these answers are woefully inadequate.

Ansible refers to Dave Langford's multiply-Hugoed monthly SF fanzine. It's a useful mix of an events calendar, births and deaths (mostly deaths, alas), and funnies. It's also a term for FTL communications devices in lots of SF.
B-movie was a goth club in London. It was really good, with lots of old faces from the Slimelight. Sadly, however, a venue change gradually strangled it to death.
Car-free is fairly self-explanatory. I think private motor cars are a blight on society. As such, it would be a bit hypocritical for me to use them, and I don't have room for any new vices.
Discordianism is not a spoof religion at all, oh no. Anyway, I hear it works even if you don't believe in it.
Elite is Braben and Bell's classic videogame from 1984, years ahead of its time. Space trading, open ended universe through procedural generation, 3D... it was like nothing anyone had seen before. Now Braben squats on the rights to stop anyone doing anything useful with them and promises to release Elite 4 some time before the heat death of the universe.
Gema is a round yellow character from Digi Charat, long suffering and put upon.

weds and I invented^W discovered a vast quantity of additional facts about gemas, including their great love of beer.
Irn-bru is a very odd orange drink from Scotland which makes a serviceable hangover cure.
NetHack is a roguelike game. The first one's free. Actually, they're all free, which makes it very dangerous. What is a roguelike game? Well, it's a game like Rogue, oh soddit, you can use Wikipedia.
Ranting is something I love to do.
Real ale is something I like to drink. Traditionally British beer is kept with live yeast in the cask where it undergoes a secondary fermentation. It is served cool, but not cold, in order that you can taste it. American beer is served icy cold for a related reason.

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I'm curious about how wide you stretch the definition of "private motor car" - what about grey areas such as taxis, rental cars or car clubs? Or do you not consider them grey areas? ;)

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Not at all. I've been in one non-PT road motor vehicle in the last year and a half; a moving van. All else aside, I absolutely wouldn't want to support Cambridge taxi drivers in any way.

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Hmm, I've always thought of taxis at least as public transport. Not that I disagree with your sentiments towards local taxi drivers but sometimes they're sadly necessary. Like getting home from A&E with a broken ankle.

I'm amused that my surgery info tells me to bring someone with me to drive me home. Wouldn't help much to bring Mike since he doesn't drive anyway! I plan to get a taxi again.

Buses aren't a good substitute when you can't walk the 1/2 mile plus to the bus stop. And bikes don't help when you can't physically cycle.

I didn't write the thing about limited mobility above, because I'm lazy [2], but: yes, presently, people with limited mobility don't get a lot of choice, and they may need cars in the sense that able-bodied people don't.

But how could we improve life for people with limited mobility? We could ensure that rural bus services aren't allowed to become a bad joke (and why are they a bad joke? Because "everybody" drives); that urban bus services are punctual and reliable (which they're not, because "everybody" drives, and because cities are strangled on motor cars); that tram services and urban light railways are felt to be worth running and can be punctual and reliable; that half the railway network isn't missing; that the half that isn't missing is run as a public service rather than as corporate welfare for Stagecoach; that we have local shops, pubs and facilities not vast out-of-town retail monoliths; that employers don't think it's a good idea to be in the arse end of nowhere with no PT links; that public services do not blithely assume you can travel five miles at the drop of a hat. Of course, as an added bonus, these things benefit the able-bodied as well, but we at least can work round most of the damage with bicycles.

In spite of that, would some people still require mobility aids? Absolutely. One-ton mobility aids that can travel at seventy mph [1]? Well, maybe not.

Even now, in some more civilised cities, you could use a trishaw and avoid funding the local taxi drivers, who are probably equally murderous. We came close enough to that in Cambridge.

[1] Assuming we live in some utopia where motorists are not universally equipped to break the law.

[2] Maybe I should save a copy of it.

I saw a trishaw in Cambridge the other week, they must be back! Whether they're useful or just a touristy thing I don't know.

The only reason we stopped having them was that the company doing them had a dispute with the council and ended up taking their ball home. Surprised it's taken so long for another company to step in really.

IIRC taxi drivers persuaded the council to make it difficult for them.

The taxi drivers objected to them being treated differently to other kinds of taxi, which doesn't seem that unreasonable. Since they have lower maintenance and operating costs, they could easily have stumped up the extra money and still have had a competitive advantage.

They _are_ different from other kinds of taxi; they don't pollute the (extremely poor) air in Cambridge and they're not lethally dangerous. That alone would suggest that a more relaxed regime might be appropriate (as indeed the Council's Environment Committee favoured).

Furthermore aspects of the proposed requirements were not merely treating them on an even footing. Restricting a model of trishaw that is widely used in the USA for three passengers to two was not; taxis are not required to leave an empty seat. Proposing not to permit a trishaw to wait at the railway station was not; a massive area of the station forecourt is used for taxis.

Likewise, while ultimately I'd obviously like to see trishaws offer the same service as motor taxis do, Mr Lane's trishaws were clearly a tourist attraction. It was not sensible to expect them to demonstrate the same knowledge of the outer parts of the city as taxi drivers are expected to (and, in Cambridge, didn't IME, albeit that it's some years out of date now).

Your first paragraph falls into an is-ought trap I think. You mean the law should allow the council to give such preferential treatment, but I'm pretty sure it didn't then at least.

Of course most of the other issues are pretty much irrelevant now anyway - the station forecourt is going to be completely remodelled when the misguided bus comes through, so maybe it won't be as much of a bottleneck. And many taxi drivers don't know Cambridge and rely on satnav to find things. With hilarious consequences.

But I really do think the trishaw operator threw a bit of a hissy fit back then.

I know where you're coming from with cars. I've given up air travel for reasons that may be similar - the planet can't afford the environmental impact. (And I'm rather fond of human beings and would like to have a planet that can continue to support our species in a few generation's time)

I don't fly either, but the environmental impact of car travel is just one reason; even if it wasn't there I think cars would be a blight. They'd still produce the same levels of carnage (leading cause of death from 15-35, etc) and be as much of an instrument of exclusion for people who can't or won't use them. Obviously the environmental and oil-dependency issues don't help _either_, but on the other hand I think we're doomed on those issues regardless - whereas there is some hope that car-free communities like Vauban will become more popular and that I'll be lucky enough to live in one at some point.

damerell

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April